How SEC could get complicated come playoff time

Mississippi State beats Alabama on Saturday, wins the Southeastern Conference championship game and goes merrily along into the College Football Playoff.

Or Alabama defeats Mississippi State and Auburn, takes the SEC title game and rolls into the playoff. That could even earn the SEC two spots in the final four, depending on how the Bulldogs do against Mississippi in the Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving weekend.

Those are the easy solutions for the SEC.

Things could, however, still become very complicated, and it wouldn’t take a bunch of crazy upsets to get there.

Barring no other upsets with the teams involved, imagine this scenario. If Mississippi State loses at Alabama and at Ole Miss and the Tide tumbles against Auburn in the Iron Bowl after Auburn beats Georgia on Saturday — VIOLA! — four-way tie for first in the SEC West with each team 6-2.

The tiebreakers would send Auburn to the SEC championship game by virtue of a 2-1 record against the other three and a victory over Ole Miss.

As tough as the SEC West has been this season, even a two-loss team from that division with a conference championship would likely have a spot in the playoff — especially if that two-loss team is Auburn. The Tigers have one of the best out-of-conference wins in the country at Kansas State.

“We have more ranked teams in the SEC West than any other conference, total,” Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen said.

Where it could get weird for the SEC is if the West becomes a two-loss logjam and the winner loses the SEC championship game to Georgia, Missouri or Florida. Yes, the Gators are still alive for the division title.

Then what? It would be hard to make a case for any of those East teams making the playoff.

Georgia would enter the championship with three losses under that scenario. Missouri, even if it does avoid another conference defeat, would still have that home loss to Indiana on the resume and no regular-season wins against any of the top-tier West teams. As for Florida, well, maybe if the Gators can beat Florida State, a case could be made for them as a team on the rise.

Would the committee reward a two-loss SEC team from the West that didn’t even win its division? And if so, which one? Or — GASP! — just leave the SEC out altogether?

The picks:

MARQUEE MATCHUPS

No. 1 Mississippi State (plus 7 1/2) at No. 4 Alabama

Tide has won its two SEC home games 101-21 — but that was against Florida and Texas A&M … ALABAMA 35-24.

No. 2 Florida State (minus 1 1/2) at Miami

Seminoles have won four straight against rival Hurricanes, average score 35-17 … FLORIDA STATE 31-24.